Disposing of a petition that had sought a direction to the Centre to make amendments to the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, to enable provisions for imposing life sentence and death sentence for corruption, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court observed that it was for the appropriate legislature to look into such matters.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice M.M. Sundresh observed that the petitioner sought to espouse a public cause by suggesting that Prevention of Corruption Act ought to be suitably amended by incorporating maximum punishment of life imprisonment and even death sentence.
“We do not know if the petitioner’s sentiment reflects the public perception to corruption in public office in general. We hope it does not. At any rate, it is for the appropriate legislature to look into matters of policy, including prescribing punishment for offences,” the judges said.
The court observed that no writ of mandamus could be issued by a court to command any legislature to enact a particular statute or to prescribe a particular form of punishment or the like. The court observed that the writ petition was not entertained and it was left open to the petitioner to move the political field for appropriate action in accordance with law.
The court was hearing the petition filed by R. Parthiben of Tiruchi who sought a direction to the Centre to consider his representation to make amendments to the Prevention of Corruption Act to enable provisions to impose life sentence and death sentence. The petitioner also sought the seizure of immovable properties, jewels, bank accounts of those against whom cases were registered under the Act.
